Playtime for Prefects
by AnnHoj
Summary: What do you get when you mix Ron Weasley fresh from Quiddich practice, a surprise from Hermione, and the soapy depths of the prefect's bathtub? -Well...something far cleaner than it sounds, of course. Sorry, I'm bad with summaries.
1. Chapter 1

So once upon a time there was a stupid little plot bunny hopping through my mind... Did you ever wonder while reading what the heck one person would do with a bathroom as gigantic as the the Prefect's bathroom? Well, I did.  
Anyway, it's set during Order of the Phoenix more or less. It might seem a little hokey or impractical in the beginning, but I swear it will all fall into place towards the end. So I was slightly disappointed that the fifth movie made no mention of Hermione and Ron as prefects, or of Ron playing Quiddich...so I made a point to make up for it. I apologize for typos, I tried to hunt them all down, but I could have failed. And I also apologize for the slightly fluffy nature of this piece, but that's the way I like it, so that's the way it will be. Enjoy!

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For being his best friend, Ron found Harry's style as Quiddich captain to be a little more demanding than he had imagined. He didn't exactly expect him to go easy on him by any means, but when he was told he needed broken in as the team's new keeper, he didn't think he'd feel so…broken after the fact. He had done some practicing with Harry, Ginny, and Hermione at the Burrow during the summer, but his first day trying to hang in with the rest of the Gryffindor team was by far more difficult, and painful for that matter. He meant no disrespect to his sister and Hermione, but they had failed to prepare him properly. He had been hit with quaffles and occasional bludgers. He had fallen off his broom once and landed in a huge puddle of mud accompanied by a thump and a splash. 

He dragged his broom and his practice gear up the stairs, tracking muddy footprints all the way up to the Prefect's bathroom. He didn't bother to drop off his stuff in his room before heading there. He was tired, absolutely filthy, and not to mention, he imagined he smelled rather similar to a few choice ingredients locked up in Snape's potions supply closet. He didn't know what it was, but it smelled quite foul yet familiar to him. He felt like his skin was crawling underneath the layer of sweat mixed with dirt which had accumulated. Taking a detour would only make the spider-like feeling worse.

When he got to the end of the carpeted hallway, he reached the doorway to one of his favorite rooms in all of Hogwarts. Harry had told him about it the year before, when Cedric had granted him access during the Tri-Wizard, but his description, he felt, didn't give it the justice it rightfully deserved. It was like something the king of England would have, a swimming pool size tub with golden faucets and stained glass windows. He had been accustomed to the tiny bathroom at the Burrow, the only bathroom for, at most, seven children occupying the house. He had to admit, one thing he enjoyed most about his new title as "prefect" was that fact that he was granted access of such a room. The telling younger children what's what got pretty irritating pretty fast, but the prefect's bathroom would always remain a good thing to him.

It was open only a crack, though he thought nothing of it as he anxiously pushed the door open. He turned to his right and dropped off his things immediately. He grimaced as he lifted his arms to stretch out. Man, he was definitely not like a bouquet of flowers. He slipped his shirt up and over his head revealing his toned stomach and the stressed muscles that resided in his upper arms and back. He couldn't help but catch a glimpse of himself in one of the many mirrors that lined the wall adjacent to him. Sure he hated today's practice, but with a few more he knew he'd be well on his way to compete with Viktor, or at least more so than he could have done previously. He had grown less pasty looking over the summer, degnoming the garden and spending time at the lake a short walk way from home, or was it simply the layer of Quiddich grime that had cast a tan hue upon his skin? He was going to throw the credit to the sun, simply because it sounded better to him. He'd already gotten taller and wasn't that just the kind of guy she liked; tall, fit, and slightly tanned? Sure, he still paled in comparison to his Bulgarian competition, but he knew that regardless, he could never make the game that close to call.

He didn't mean to fall in to the vanity of it all, but he just assumed that, considering she had known him for years and knew basically everything about him and he couldn't see how he could possibly change that; he could, however, improve his appearance and hope that maybe, just maybe she'd catch on somehow. He didn't think Hermione to be shallow. She was a smart girl and knew for a fact that there was more to look for in a person that a lovely outside, but he honestly couldn't understand what else in Krum drew Hermione to him. Sure, he was Ron's idol. Posters of the guy had adorned his walls back at home, but ever since he met him in person, some of his "magic" seemed to have disappeared. Some may claim that his impression was terribly biased, but the guy rarely spoke and had the dullest sense of humor he had ever stumbled upon. Ron wasn't the most brilliant person by any means, but something about Krum just screamed to him that he wasn't the brightest wand in the shop. Ron had always worried whether brilliant Hermione thought of him as too unintelligent for her taste, but then the next thing he knew, she was hanging on Krum's arm. It made no sense, if he knew Hermione at all.

He took one last purposeful glimpse in the mirror and it all struck him that he was just wasting his time. No matter what he did, it was, more likely than not, going to dig him a deeper hole rather than get him out of it. He was just Ron, best friend Ron, and that was how he would be eternally labeled. There was no changing to it. He could have, theoretically, buffed himself up beyond Viktor, he could say all the most polite, most flattering, most right phrases, and she wouldn't have taken a second look.

He turned around and wander closer the large pool, to begin running the water. He was just about to turn the knob when he glanced back to the tub and suddenly realized that it had already been drawn for him. It puzzled him. First of all, why would anyone actually make the effort to do it for him and if for some reason they had; how could they have known that he was planning to stop by that place that day at that time? He paused for a moment to take a lengthier look at the large room almost entirely taken up by this one water-filled hole in the floor. At the end, he noticed there to be a pile of school books stacked at the edge of the tub and a small framed girly haired girl sitting on the inside ledge in the shallow body of water.

It was Hermione; he could tell that much, but what he couldn't figure was why he hadn't noticed her presence sooner than now. She still seemed oblivious to his presence, not saying a word since he walked through the door. Ron, now noticing, would have expected to hear a scream. If anything, he thought that the girl in the tub would have taken more notice to the person barging in than the one doing the barging. He sensed something was terribly wrong.

He ran over to the other end of the tub to find her eyes closed and apparently unconscious. He knelt down on the tiled floor above her head, but he didn't know what to do first. Had she hit her head on the tile and knocked herself out, or had someone put a terribly spell on her purposely. He bent down towards the water and held his two fingers to her neck searching for a pulse. No sooner did he place a hand to her skin, and she nearly jumped straight out of the water. "Bloody hell….Ron!" She exclaimed as soon as it registered to her eyes who had disturbed her. "What do you think you are doing?" She scrambled to gather bubbles around her as Ron, as much of a gentleman he could be at the moment, turned his back on her as she was talking.

"What were you doing? I mean the door was…" He had a bad habit of wandering as he talked and soon found himself turning where he stood. He snapped his body back to face the other way once again, showing his frustration with her in the way he shouted with his hands. "It was open, so I just came in!"

He could hear her getting out of the water behind him. He tried to avert his mind from wandering through thoughts of which he knew she would be in great protest as she did so. "I fell asleep, okay!" He heard her footsteps slightly squish on the tiles as he sensed her moving towards him. "I was sitting there studying for my O.W.Ls and I fell asleep." She spoke as she appeared in front of him.

He raised his head cautiously, to find her wrapped in a towel all sopping wet, like Fang after his bath. He also noticed two thin black straps draped over either shoulders from underneath the terry cloth. She hadn't been in as much of a compromising position as he had previously thought. "You wear your swimsuit in the bathtub? Man, Hermione are that much of a…"

"I wasn't _bathing_." She answered bluntly, to the puzzled look upon Ron's face. "Hogwarts doesn't have a pool, so…when I feel like a little swimming, I come in here." Well, it kind of made sense, but in more a Luna way than a Hermione one. Though the more he thought of it the more logical it seemed. He knew how much she loved to go swimming during the summer at the Burrow, but she always had a problem with cold water. It took her forever to just jump right into the lake, unless he pulled or pushed her in of course. The lake on grounds wasn't allowed for swimming and even if it was, at this time during the year, it would have been too cold for her leisure. Sure, it sounded a bit out there, but what else would you do to make use of a pool-sized bathtub?

"So why did you bring your books?" As soon as the words slipped from his mouth, he knew it was a rather stupid question. This was Hermione. Hermione and books went hand in hand, especially when the OWLs were quickly approaching.

"Trying a new studying atmosphere…the common room was too chatty." She pulled the towel closer around her body, suddenly growing more self conscious. Goosebumps were beginning to form on her damp skin left uncovered. She normally wasn't so jittery around Ron. He was her best friend and if she was comfortable around anyone, it was him. She just didn't appreciate being startled in such a location.

She wandered back over to her stack of books, kicking herself for falling asleep for who knew how long when she could have used it productively to cram more little spells and charms into her over crowded mind. The exams were in two weeks and her time was quickly slipping past her unused. She sat down on the ledge, her legs dangling in the still soapy water below, with her defensive spells book opened on her lap and her scarlet and gold towel resting lifelessly on the floor. "What are you doing?" She heard him ask from somewhere near the stained glass windows lit up behind her.

She didn't part her eyes from the text as she answered him impatiently. "I'm studying, Ron. What does it look like?" She moved her feet in a circular motion through the bubbly solution in which they were immersed as she continued to absorb information.

"Well, you can study in the common room…I can not, however, bathe there. So I was hoping you'd leave." He spoke close to her ear as he crouched down beside her. He assumed that it was the only way to get his words to register to her over the "_facts about Patronus charms_".

She responded in a relayed manner, appearing rather perturbed, sighing audibly, and being slow to rid herself from the room. In fact she hadn't moved but an inch when she saw and then heard him hurriedly fight with his belt and leave his jeans behind when he jumped in, nearly drenching her books in the process. She snapped her book closed suddenly.

He waded closer to her, parting the communal suds that floated together across the surface like the Red Sea as he moved. He came to stop as soon as he reached where she still remained perched. "Look at me…" He ran both of his hands through his hair. Though he hadn't drenched his ginger locks as he did with Hermione, the strands still stood up straight upon his head as he let them go. "I'm filthy and in need of some hardcore cleaning." He shook his head a handful of times and the spiked up strands of hair fell flat. He took a step or two further in her direction, placing himself conveniently with one of her legs dangling over the rim of the pool on either side of him form. His height, when compared to the floor, matched that of Hermione's when she sat in front of him. "Or you could always set your books down and join me?"

A smirk grew on his face as he watched her place the textbook she had held in her hand carefully on top of the insanely thick pile at her side. No sooner had she done so, he realized that she had only done so to give herself a free hand when she attempted to slap him upside the head. Luckily his reflexes were still on heightened alert from practice and he ducked quickly to the side missing it unlike the quaffle he had met in the same manner just earlier that day.

He read into the expression upon her face of what he thought to be a slightly smile, a subconscious one, one that she wasn't aware she was wearing, but that something inside her prompted it to appear. It was a risky move, but he thought, somehow, that he could pull it off successfully. Banking on his tricky reflexes, he quickly seized her form at the waist and tugged her into the water with him. "Swimming, 'Mione! Join me _swimming_. It sounds like more fun." He spoke in a downward direction to where she stood slightly below his height.

He couldn't help but to notice, has he still stood with his arms, tired and worn, looped around her narrow waist that the swimming attire which she had chosen to wear today was considerably different from that of their summer days spent at the lake. It was plain black just the same, though this particular garment consisted of far less fabric. Where as the one he had seen before had been exceedingly modest, this one dipped lower in the front, was nearly bare in the back, and split into distinct pieces in the middle baring her midriff. Apparently she had assumed that she wouldn't be seeing anyone while wearing it. He had to focus his mind carefully, guiding it away from where he knew it would wander if was left dangerously unattended.

Hermione was a smart girl; that was common knowledge. Everyone knew it, but, for them, that was the only thing that they could see. She was the girl most eager to raise her hand in class, the know-it-all, the one with her nose eternally buried in a book. She had begun to think the same way about herself; she was the "geeky girl" and there was no way that she could get around that. But Ron knew that there was far more to her than that; he just wished that she could see the same things in herself. Not only was she the most brilliant girl in their year, the most brilliant in all the people he had ever met for that matter, but she was beautiful in all ways he saw possible. Even though he couldn't fully understand her attempts of the S.P.E.W campaign, he could respect the passion she had for doing what she felt was the right thing regardless of whether people would listen to her or not. The amount of compassion she had, he knew he could never possess himself, yet at the same time, he loved how she could hold her own with guys like Malfoy, often managing to nearly break their noses in the process.

On a superficial level, which he couldn't help but perceive, he loved the way her curls misbehaved and spiraled wildly in all directions. He loved her porcelain skin, although pale, but perfect. Despite their constant quarrels and fiery words exchanged, her honey eyes never could turn cold on him, though how desperately she wanted them to show such. She was a typically modest girl, never showing too much of herself, nothing in bad taste, and nothing more than she felt was necessary. He felt bad allowing his eyes to wander across the area of her skin that rarely saw sunlight, but he just couldn't stop as the moving water lapped up at her bare waist.

He snapped back to what was going on outside of his own mind when a big splash of water met with his face followed by Hermione's laugh to which he had grown rather accustom. "What was that for?" He asked, causing a wave of retaliation to crash her way.

She didn't answer, but escaped him to the other side of the pool, only for him to follow closely behind. She knew that he mostly likely would so she was prepared for when she caught up with her. She jumped towards him, pouncing much like Crookshanks, on to his shoulders and tried with all her might, all of the strength that she could muster, to tackle him off of his feet and into the water, more so than he already was, but she failed miserably as he sill stood sturdy on his feet, all of her weight clinging to his shoulders.

"What are you trying to do?" He shook his head as she let him go defeated, but in a manner that she wouldn't admit that it had occurred. He couldn't help but let a short laugh slip from his smirk. "You can't outsmart me every time, you know."

She simply stared back at him with a hint of a scowl. "I know…The Daily Prophet will be knocking down my door for the headliner." He attempted a backstroke across the water as he held her recent failure over his head. He wasn't much good at it, however. He had a hard time staying afloat, and after a few short stokes, he felt his feet sinking to the bottom, along with the rest of himself which soon followed. He sputtered the soapy tasting water from his mouth as he returned to his feet a few feet away from her.

She had noticed a while bad that Ron had a real talent for making an utter fool of himself. He could have been going well for the longest time, and the next thing either of them knew, something stupid would fly untamed out of his big mouth or he'd trip over his own feet and any façade that he had managed to build up came crashing down. But she had to admit, she liked the Ron left in the wreckage of all the perfection he had clumsily dropped. She found his awkward nature one of the most endearing qualities of which he was completely oblivious. In situations such as this, she couldn't help but stand back and watch with a shy smile. "Shouldn't you be studying too? I haven't seen you crack a book all week." She spoke, but still kept her distance.

He leaned his weight back against the opposite side of the pool before he had any sort of response to give her. "You and I just work differently. You stress yourself out studying like mad…and I just take it a little easier, you know, nice entertaining breaks in between…" He folded his arms across his half dried off chest.

"So this in one of your 'entertaining breaks', is it?"

He looked around the room as if he was searching for something specific, in the room containing them or some though lost in the corner of his mind. "Oh, yes…you have no idea. You should try it, really." He laughed with squinted eyes.

As her eyes closed, her smile widened. She moved closer to him, blinded, with her arms outstretched before her, feeling for where he might be. "Godric!"

He snorted back a loud laugh before exclaiming, "Gryffindor!" and diving to his right, trying his best to make the least amount of noise as was possible to throw her off of his trail. It was just like the burrow, where he had first learned the silly little children's game. When she first introduced the concept to him, he was instantly confused as who this Marco Polo guy was. He had never heard of him before, never read about him in any history books in school. If he could remember correctly, he thought that _marco_ had to have been some kind of spell she had discovered, and _polo_, the counter spell as he heard Harry say it;it was all so foreign. They then decided that it was best to be renamed for their house founder instead of some random muggle name.

She proved to be good at it too, like she had a sixth sense of sorts. She could hear every bit of movement made, every stifled snicker spilled. Perhaps that's why she was so quick when it came to defensive spells. They were used to turning to the child's game when they found themselves bored during summer and if she was capable of catching him quickly given the vast place to be found in the lake, the prefect's bathtub, although gigantic, was going to be far easier for her. He didn't have far to escape. "Godric!" She was too close to him for him to respond with any sound or she would have pinpointed his location in a second. He tired to veer off to the left, but she had caught him against the side of the shallow pool.

She opened her eyes again to find that she had him trapped cleverly between her hands that gripped the edge of pool on either side of him, giving him no where to be except right where he had found himself standing then. "Gryffindor?" He answered, though moments too late. He didn't know what to do with his hands, as they had been floating in air the moment she had stopped him from moving, so he let them rest slung around her bare shoulders. Though he hadn't consciously planned it, it had been a clever side affect that she had shifted her weight closer to where his legs held him upright. Her fingers traveled to his sides that had been plagued with tiny bubbles that had fled the water to cling to him just as she had.

A moment of complete silence was held between the two of them as the stood in growing proximity of each other. Though she could move away any moment, unlike Ron, she felt frozen there, seized by the look swimming in his eyes. She could feel the tension floating between them, but she was lost as to what to do. She could feel his heart increase in rhythm through her palms at his back the longer she stayed in his presence.

She moved closer and his breath hitched in his chest. "There goes your headline." He could feel her warm breath dance upon his neck and then fade away as she paused.

He let the pent up exhalations escape from his lungs before he spoke as a way to refocus himself before he began. "At least I won't have to deal with Rita banging down my door." He nervously laughed through his words.

"Speaking of that…did you lock the door?" He could feel her words reverberate against his lips, she was so close to him.

"_Ron! Did you lock the door?"_ He heard Hermione scream through the door as he awoke in his room. He sat up, lifting his head up off of his desk, leaving a wet spot on the wood surface where his open, likely snoring, mouth had rested. He squinted his eyes to the light peering in through the curtains as Hermione aloramora-ed his door before he could get up to open it himself. Frick…it had only been a dream.

She took in every aspect of the room as she entered; the piles of books just like hers opened and sprawled across his desk, his shabby appearance, the hair that stood up on his head. "You actually were studying? I thought you just locked yourself in so I couldn't bug you to open a book or two." She spoke genuinely surprised as she took a seat at the end of his bed, across from where he still sat sleepily on his desk chair.

He looked up at her, rubbing his eyes. "Well, I tried…and then I got a little distracted."

"By sleep?" She questioned as her eyes followed his steps which ultimately led to her. The mattress dipped slightly as he added his weight to it beside her.

"I guess you could say that…" He answered with a sheepish grin, knowing all that he had seen resided safely within his own memory.

She watched him let out a rather large yawn before she spoke again, hoping that he was awake enough to comprehend her words. "So, a few of us are going to Hogsmeade. I thoughtwe could use a break….if you want to go that is?"

He shook his head and she looked concerned, until he spoke up again. "Are you okay?" He raised a hand to her forehead to prove his point. "You want to get away from the books and you're actually questioning whether I would like to or not?" Sure he had tried to increase his study time as a way to please or impress her and her bookworm way, but he hadn't left all of his procrastination habits behind him.

"Hey, didn't you ever think I might just feel like living on the wild side?" She asked him, a serious expression masking her face.

"Honestly…no." He answered bluntly.

"Well, for your information…" She jumped up from her seat and grabbed him tightly by the arm, egging him to get up and go with her. "I'm feeling a little change might be needed. Now, come on…there is a cup of tea at Madam Puddifoot's with my name written all over it!"

He didn't need her to ask twice. He stood up, threw on a jacket and attempted to force his hair to lay flat. When it refused, he gave up and followed behind her, a certain spring in his step that he hadn't possessed until now.

He knew he had barely passed divination, but he was certainly hoping that his latest 'vision' held some strand of truth when it came to what the future held for him. It had to, it just did! How often did Hermione say that she'd rather do anything other than study when she had something like her OWLs in the next week? Never, until now at least. Sure, it had been far fetched. Never in a million years would real life play out for him as it had in his dreams. He'd never find himself sharing the Prefect's bathtub with her. Merlin, no! But it made him that much more optimistic that something far more realistic could occur in its place.

Something was different with Hermione, obviously, but what exactly had prompted the sudden change in character, he didn't yet know. She was away from the books and knocking at his door. Even more so, she had become perfectly fine with going against the rules. She was plotting against Umbridge and speaking out in class, and now by passing a Saturday of study time. If things were going anywhere, they were moving in his favor.

As she linked arms with his to hurry him out the door and down the stairwell, he couldn't help but hope that all of his prophesizing was correct, that this new Hermione could, maybe, possibly, if he was really lucky,have an eye for a guy like Ron Weasley after all.

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So I'm thinking of adding another chapter or two to follow this, but I'm not sure in what direction to take it just yet.  
Reviews make me happy, so remember that and tell me what you think. 


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry, I took so long to finish it, but it just never seemed right. I still don't know if I'm completely pleased with it. Perhaps I'll figure that out later. Anyway, I know it's not completely congruent with the fifth book, I mention Ginny and Harry, and that doesn't really occur until later, but I didn't see it as that too terrible of a change. Sorry if any of you uber accurate people out there are offended. Enjoy! AnnHoj

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Her books were back at Hogwarts, sitting neatly in a pile on top of her desk. She could picture them exactly, a pile of notes she had taken through out the last year or so on the other side, all in order of topic, just like she liked them. They were calling her name and yet, there she was, strolling the streets of Hogsmeade far from the wooden desk that had become her second home during the last few months. She was strolling alongside Ron, though her arm had long left where it had been carelessly looped through his as they both scurried off from their studies to their specially granted free time. Harry and Ginny followed along at her other side, though lagging behind slightly as they carried on a conversation of their own.

Ron looked over to her, giving her a light smile followed by a roll of his eyes that managed to tell her precisely what he was thinking. She kicked herself for how terrible her idea had become; to invite the other two along. She knew how little Ron could stand seeing his best friend and his sister appearing all chummy right in front of his eyes. His mood always fell when he was in their combined presence and he turned irritable and sulked to himself for the whole time they were around. She could understand, although she was a sister to no one, but she wanted him to be his natural easy-going Ron self today of all days.

But then, if she hadn't invited them along it would have been just the two of them. She wouldn't have completely protested against the idea; she actually would have welcomed it with open arms. It was whether he would take it the same way that worried her immensely. She had invited them along as her own safety net, little did they know, because so far, in the few minutes they had been around, they had managed to cause more harm than good.

Hermione picked up her pace, leaving more space between her and the apparently happy, though unofficial couple, thankfully Ron followed evenly at her side. "You've still got a good few hours of studying time left. Are you sure you don't want to go back?" He asked her, sparking their own, although elemental, conversation as they continued down the narrow sidewalk that led to the small festive shop.

"No." She answered confidently, as if she didn't take a second thought as he might have expected. "No studying…not until tomorrow at least." Yes, she was trying to be more carefree for a reason, one which heavily involved Ron, but she knew that if it was too drastic he would probably see clear through it all. And that was something that she simply could not risk at this point. It was too dangerous and could very well scare him far away if it was far too obvious and fell apart right in front of him.

They slipped into the coffee shop, grabbing a table for four in the far corner of the room. She thought Ron was going to gag by the disgusted look that plagued his face after he watched Harry pull out Ginny's spindle back chair for her to sit before he took one for himself. Hermione took a seat between Ron and Harry, just for good measure, in case anything was to set the overprotective brother off.

She could feel the tension hanging in the air and the thicker it got, the more pessimistic she grew. She had wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, with Ron, and just Ron, but they always seemed to do everything in threes; Harry, Ron, and Hermione; the great trio. Harry was one of her very closest friends, sure enough, but it always seemed like her time with Ron was always compromised somehow. She just wished it had turned out more like she had imagined, rather than a big, awkward, embarrassing mess like it, in her opinion, had since become.

Theirs was one of the few tables occupied in the restaurant, so their waitress was soon to stop by in no time. Ron looked over to Harry and his sister, to see that they were too engaged in each other's presence to notice him. He didn't know or really care what they were talking about, but he took the opportunity to lean over Hermione's way. "Can we get out of here?" He asked, not caring if he offended the other two in the process. "Take tea to go or something…" He instantly saw her face fall from where it had previously been held in a pleasant, beautiful, smile.

"Is something wrong?" She wasn't one to condone playing dumb, but she didn't want to admit that things had turned sour since they had gotten there. But she thought better of it. "This was a terrible idea. I knew I…"

He cut her off short. "No, It was brilliant, I needed it." He said hoping to mend over any offense he might have made towards her. "But can we leave those two here and just…go somewhere else?"

She couldn't hold back the grin that was to follow. It was funny how she had managed to get just what she had wanted in the first place by the means of a terrible mistake, and he, of all people, had suggested it. She nearly forgot to answer him she was pleased with how things had worked themselves out for once. "Yes…they probably wouldn't notice anyway."

No sooner had they planted themselves in their ornate bistro chairs and they were leaving them behind for the counter to order two cups to go. Their talkative friends paused for goodbyes and actually seemed slightly disappointed for a second before Ginny began talking again; something about upcoming DA practice and what he'd be teaching next, and they were forgotten once again. The two remained silent until they had cleared the doorway, worried if they spoke too confidently, their plan would be torn to pieces.

Hermione was actually laughing as she hurried him out of the little shop with her drink-free hand. He couldn't help but join in at the contagious tune of her laughter. It rose and fell uninhibitedly as if she was composing a children's song in the process. It was a bit of a stretch, but he couldn't fight the immediate need to hug her. Without a rational thought in his head, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into him as they hurried down the street like cackling idiots. And luckily for him, however, she didn't resist.

She found it strange how uncomfortable she had become in his presence. They had been best friends for years, yet the fear she held that she could, and most likely would, lose all of that if he was to only found out how badly she wanted to be so much more than that. She didn't want to give it away, so, as illogical it was, she had pushed him away. But it felt so nice to be so close to him and she wanted to just give up the act so badly.

He felt her arm wrap around his waist, although loosely, as he led her down a new street that fell perpendicular to the one which they were last on. "Am I a terrible person to say I absolutely hate to see them together all the time?" He asked her sincerely as the light snow fell around them, sticking to his eyelashes and melting upon his face. "He's my friend…she's my sister. It's just not good."

"You aren't terrible…you're just watching out for her." She wasn't trying to give him the exact answer that he wanted to hear, but she could understand what could cause such a feeling to spread throughout him. He was her big brother and she was his only sister, it was like his job. "She's your little sister…I think I'd do the same, to be honest."

Her answer didn't pacify him completely however. There were still concerns unmentioned burdening his mind. "And what if it all goes sour between them? Whose side do I take?" She could feel the franticness in his voice, and the way he gestured wildly despite the cup of hot liquid in his hand, his voice nearly broke as he spoke. "Friend? Sister?...Either way, it's going to be bad."

"First of all, nothing has happened yet…and you know you can't protect her forever. Some things she just needs to test out for herself." She said, followed by a long swig of her tea. It felt warm against the cold that had crept through her out in the wintry weather. "It might be inconvenient for you, but no one can help who they fall for." She didn't mean for it to contain a double meaning, but it had just slipped out as so. She was the best proof of the statement. First there was Krum, whom had bored her to tears after a while. He was pleasant to look at, but as soon as he opened his mouth, he managed to lose his charm. And worse of all, getting involved with Krum had helped ruin her friendly standings with the one person she had recently come to realize she had loved all along…you know, as if falling for your best friend wasn't complicated enough in the first place.

"Well, until I can settle with that…I think I'm still going to grumble about it for a little bit longer." He responded with a wrinkled nose and a crooked smile as he tossed their emptied cups in a garbage bin he had nearly walked past. He hadn't been paying much attention to what was going on around them or where he was going. Someone could have walked straight into him and he wouldn't have seen it coming, he had been so distracted by her.

"Where are we going?" She stopped right in the middle of the lane, stopping Ron at her side as well as she took a moment to figure out where they were at the moment. She could see the narrow cobblestone road fading to an end a slight distance from where she found herself. Off to her right she could see where the lake was, although covered in snow and a sheet of gray ice, and the fence that roped off the white blanketed field surrounding the Shrieking Shack. He didn't want to admit that he didn't have the slightest clue as to where he had been leading her as this time.

He couldn't admit he hadn't been paying attention to street signs or shops they passed, but more to how pink her nose and cheeks had become since they departed. He didn't answer, but broke his comfortable stance next to her and headed to the field at full sprint, well, not his full sprint, but just slow enough that he knew Hermione could catch up quickly if she really wanted.

"Ron! What are you doing?" As she caught up with him, he was standing in the middle of a vast drift of snow, not looking towards her, but out towards to rundown house in the distance. She slowed her steps, each one made a little more difficult by the accumulating powder. She kept silent however, as to not cause him to turn around suddenly as she approached him. Once she found herself a few steps away, she mustered a bounding leap and launched herself on to his back. Her sneaky methods caught him more off guard than she had expected and successfully tackled him to the ground. Her fall was cushioned both by his form beneath her and the layer of cold snow beneath them both.

He let out a loud screech as he went hurdling to the ground. "Bloody hell, Hermione!" He exclaimed as he looked up to find who had been the culprit of his stumble. It flew out of his mouth so quickly, that he had not a chance to realize how dreadful it must have sounded to her. He was just about to apologize, when he heard a burst of her laughter.

"That was not what I meant to do…" She trailed off, her face growing redder than Ron's ears ever could. Her laughter died and her words became frozen on her tongue as she looked down to him, chuckling beneath her. She knew that she should move, but she was paralyzed on the spot, captured by his gaze, red tufts of hair sticking out from underneath his knit cap, his lips bent into a smile.

He could feel her heart beat like a rabbit when his chest pressed itself against hers as he took in each breath, along with the scent of her hair invading his nose. Her brown tendrils reached for him like a plant to the sun as they teased his cheek with their presence. It struck him then. There they were, piled like kittens in an abandoned field, slowly being covered in the rapidly falling snow. He could feel her warmth. It could have melted the snow, had there not been so much of it. He could have kissed her right then and there had the fear not made his stomach flop like a fish on land and got the best of his nerves. "'Mione?"

His voice pulled her back down to reality and she quickly scrambled off of him once she realized the lack of distance between them. "I am so sorry." She spoke, now sitting up, feeling the snow melt bit by bit into her jeans. She attempted to stand up, shuffling her weight around until she chose to sit back down at his side.

Despite the cold and the snow, he still lied in the same spot, flat on his back, his limbs spread out around him. She watched him as he continued to lie lifelessly on the ground in front of her. She saw a hint of a grin sneak across his face as began to move his arms and legs like a child on a snowy day off of school, spreading the already crumpled snow into an even more crumpled form of an angel beneath him. "Try it…it's fun…" He suggested to her in a teasing manner, pausing his creation to sit up half way.

"No!" She protested instantly. "It's cold!" She further explained, though failed to realize she had pulled her coat closer to her form as she spoke. She could feel his eyes, saddened for the sole purpose of convincing her otherwise, following her every move. She thought better of the situation. This was the reason she had conjured up this whole outing; she wanted to show Ron that she had another side, a side she had just recently stumbled upon for herself. She wasn't a stuffy, bookish, boring girl, and that was the last thing of which she ever wanted to convince him. She set her logic and the frostbiting feeling spreading throughout her legs aside, scooted herself next to him and laid down.

He rolled over on to his side to see her as he spoke. "See…not so bad." Even after she nodded an answer, he didn't move, but instead kept his focus on her, his gaze wandering nervously from her eyes to her lips and back again.

"So…" She broke the slight silence uneasily. "Are you feeling better?" She felt more comfortable with words hanging in the air. The silence terrified her. A lack of things to say led to awkwardness and unwanted thinking. Talking kept her mind occupied.

He turned away from her, peering up at the pale grey sky, before he gave her any hint of an answer. "You know…I actually forgot about…until now at least…" Even from his profile she could sense a grimace in his features as the thought raced back to him. "I mean, I want Harry to be happy…" She could sense a negative to follow. "But it's hard…first there was Cho…and then my sister of all people!" She raised an arm from where it had laid by her side to rest comfortingly on his shoulder. She'd never seen him be so open with her. He hadn't said much, but it was all evident in the tone in which he presented it; the defensiveness that his arguments usually contained had been, on this occasion, replaced with a rare hint of vulnerability. "It just makes me feel a little more alone. He's got girls…lining up for him practically. And then you've got Krum…" He still couldn't say the guy's name without a certain sting in his voice.

"Correction…" She spoke up, before he could continue. "No Krum…" A smile broke out on his face, as she knew it would, even though he tried his best to keep his joy at the information bottled up to himself.

"I'm not going to lie…I have to say I like that answer." He couldn't believe he let it slip from his mouth. One minute it was an innocent thought floating through his mind and next thing he knew the words had escaped from his lips and hung heavily in the air above them. His cheeks grew redder by the second as she remained in silence.

"I knew you would…" She said, turning on her side towards him. There was a weakness in her voice that captured him as her eyes caught his. "…that's why I told you."

"What do you mean?" Ron never was very good with vague statements. He was oblivious to so much, even if it was staring him right in the face.

She didn't know how to say it. She hadn't spent much time planning how she would tell him, strangely enough, as she seemed to plan every other aspect of her life to the furthest degree she could imagine. This, however, she had neglected for some reason. Maybe she had hoped that he would figure it out for himself, that he'd be able to read between the lines and he'd just know, leaving her off the hook. But apparently ideas like that didn't work with people like Ron.

Ron had always been too pessimistic to think that anything could happen exactly as he wanted it. He just assumed that if he wanted it to happen, it would be suddenly jinxed that fate would do everything within its power to prevent it from ending favorably. Though this time, as she spoke, he was completely unaware. He simply thought she was speaking in Hermione-like code.

She began slowly to keep herself from slipping in words she didn't mean. "You remember the Yule Ball…and how I said you ruin everything…well, I didn't mean it."

"I figured that…" He interjected, not in the least bit smugly.

"I just…" She took in a deep breath to maintain her composure. "I want to be more than your last resort, Ron…" She eyes searched his nervously, as if she was looking for his answer before he spoke, as a way to prepare herself for the worst thing that could come spewing out of his mouth any second. The longer he took, the more she wished that he would just hurry up and say something, anything. She didn't care so much what his answer was, but that he would just hurry up and put her out of her misery.

"Hermione…I was afraid to hear you say no…because…I mean…" He rambled with little confidence; stuttering, stumbling, and avoiding her eyes like wild fire; just the way he always spoke when particularly nervous, was more and more often recently. He was turning into a bumbling idiot again and he couldn't make it stop for the life of him.

She watched as he bolted up into a sitting position and, in a mere second or two, was standing up hovering above her. He appeared to be muttering to himself while slightly pacing his steps back and forth at her feet, his focus anywhere but on her. She knew, however vain it might sound, that turning away from her was the last thing that he really wanted to do in that moment. She sat up, pulling her knees into her chest, first and foremost because she was cold, but also due the fact she didn't know what to do with herself, what to say, where to be; sitting where she was, standing at his side…in his arm, his warm arms. But she knew, based upon his standoffish posture, that the only pair of warm arms with which she'd find herself acquainted would be her own that draped loosely around her legs as she still sat at his anxiously moving feet.

"Ron…stop moving." She demanded once she stood, her feet planted sturdily in one place, unlike his. He did stop, but only once he felt his arms firmly within the grasp of her hands, one above each of his elbows. "Look at me…" She shook him slightly until he allowed his blue eyes to focus on her rather than the shabby old house behind her. His florid cheeks appeared as if they were on fire, as did his ears and nose, but she knew it was only minutely the fault of the frigid air that managed to waft between them. "What is wrong, Ron?"

His gaze dropped away from her as he dared to speak. "It's just…you…and…" He spewed out a few more incoherent syllables as her fingers slipped from the wool of his jacket. She had always found him most endearing when he was awkward and rose tinted.

She raised a hand to his face and silenced him; her fingers traveled from the scarlet lobe of his ear, along his jaw, grown into faint scruff over the last few weeks, to where one lonely finger came to rest under his chin. She lured him closer to her form, drawing his chin down to her level. She quickly caught his lips within the soft embrace of her own, warming the both of them in the process. She felt the cold inhabiting her completely disapparate to a place where it was desired far more than it was in that moment. She pulled away from him a moment later, wondering what she had done.

A look of shock and awe was plastered across his face, unlike the grin that had grown upon hers. She couldn't help but laugh against his lips as she kissed him again. Though this time, he had welcomed the idea far more, now that it came to his as less of a shock. He engulfed her in his arms, though restricted by his winter attire, his kisses trailing across her cheek.

He took a step backward, away from her, though not in the last bit in a repulsed manner. She still remained close, her slender fingers still entangled with his on either hand, as if he didn't want to let her go, but some great force had made him do it. His eyes had forgotten completely about the house behind them, on the line of trees off the side, the lake in front of them, everything to which they had previously been drawn. Now, he found it impossible to take them off of her. He opened his mouth to say something, but he was shushed instantly.

"I think I get it now." She answered, pulling her hands in his up to her chest. She pulled him closer to her again, her forehead resting against his. She took a moment to abandon a quick peck upon his up curved lips before she said anything more. "Do you think they've missed us much?" She referred to Harry and Ginny, that, until that second, she had forgot still existed.

"Probably not…" He loosed his hold upon his one hand, keeping the other delicately in his as they began their stroll back into town. "…but…I don't really care." He added with a laugh.

When they found themselves back on the block containing Madam's shop, two distinct figures stood just outside the door; one with fiery red hair, just the same as Ron's but in a longer length and the other with an untamed head of black peaks and a scarlet and gold scarf draped around his neck. As Ron and his girl got closer, the unpleased looks upon their face grew more defined with each step. Ginny stood, her arms folded across her chess, her foot tapping out a tempo against the sidewalk.

"Where the hell have you two been!" Harry exclaimed as the two became close enough to him for his yelling to not be bothersome to the whole neighborhood. His arms were flailing outward toward the guilty party, but Ron couldn't wipe the smile from his face. "We've been waiting for hours!"

"We haven't been gone for hours…actually…" Hermione corrected her friend matter of factly, her unfailing smile producing a question mark upon Harry's face as evident in his features as the scar was on his forehead.

"Well…what were you doing? It's cold out…" Ginny took over interrogating, the next best thing to legilimancy, but not nearly as effective.

Ron let his arms sway back and forth in his new found happiness as he spoke. "Oh, you know…just chillin'." He hadn't noticed that the distracting movement of his arms had made the fact that Hermione's small fist was still very much within his obvious, and now both Harry and Ginny had taken notice to the little hint of what must have happened while they were away.

Harry took a long look at the two of them, an examining look, but neither Ron nor Hermione seemed to acknowledge it. He couldn't help but notice the patterns of wet and dry spots on their clothing, the dampness mixed with a little bit of mud clinging to the knees of Hermione's pant legs, the way strands of her hair had fallen out of the thick brown plait of her hair that draped over her shoulder. He raised an eyebrow at the way Ron's hat was on a little crooked and the back of his jacket and pants were completely wet as well. "Hey…at least you had fun, right?" Harry said, with a playful punch to Ron's shoulder.

Ron stood confused, trying to process everything thing that his friend had just said and done, as Harry began strolling away with Ron's sister. He looked over to Hermione with a terrified expression masking his usual features, as he had just realized. His eyes grew larger than their intended size and he spoke frantically. "Wait!...Does the think that…that we…"

"Let him think what he wants to think…" She finally answered once she had stifled her laughter and replaced it with a sly smirk upon the lips that Ron so badly wanted to kiss again.

* * *

I have to credit my friend Cara with the "just Chillin'" line. I know she doesn't actually read fan fiction, but it's her phrase, I simply borrowed it and needed to give credit where credit was due.  
Reviews graciously welcomed. Tell me what you think.


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